The Gift of Innocence
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: A special girl gives Gary the gift of faith.


The Gift of Innocence  
  
Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Faith".  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made. Some of the dialogue that appears in this story is not my own, but belongs to the writer of the Early Edition episode "Faith."  
  
I dedicate this story to Candi.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller  
  
E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
  
  
The Gift of Innocence  
  
She had every reason to be angry, to curse her circumstances, and to hate the world. But she wasn't. While other girls her age were enjoying time with their friends, experimenting with makeup, making frequent pilgrimages to the mall, or chatting on the phone about boys, she was in the hospital awaiting a new heart. Yet, she saw the value of each day, smiled gratefully at the sun, and radiated such infectious enthusiasm about the simple pleasures of life that those around her found themselves trapped in the positive spirit that was her allure.  
  
She had every reason to be angry, to be cynical. But she wasn't.  
  
She was such an anomaly, a child with a weak heart, but a child who possessed a strong soul and wisdom that defied her age. She was only eleven. And she was determined to see tomorrow and the many tomorrows after that despite the naysayers who put her odds of survival on medical probabilities. She, instead, put her odds on God. God wouldn't let her down. Faith was a more potent elixir than all the cures bandied about by those medical scholars. That much she was sure.  
  
Her name was Rachel and she taught him so much about the power of faith. She gave the gift of innocence wrapped around unquestioned faith, which had helped her through the difficult days. Faith was something he could neither see nor touch. Faith was something he couldn't explain. But to her, it was everything.  
  
Some people might say that the powerful hand of destiny wielded its influence in allowing them to meet. Surely, he never expected that his path would cross with this very special girl.  
  
It was supposed to be an ordinary save. Well, as ordinary a save when it involved preventing a hit and run on a bridge during the wee hours of the night. What possessed him to take Chuck along he'll never know. Okay, admittedly, Chuck was nice in driving him to the location of the impending disaster. But he could have really done without Chuck's complaining. Yes, it was cold; however, physical discomfort was a small price to pay when a life was at stake. Then, Chuck decided to go on one of his tangents about the paper being wrong. Something about atmospheric disturbance, something like that, but Chuck always had some theory that failed to resemble rational thinking. Just like his pschyo babbling about "Oedipal Triangles", ramblings so rooted in the quagmire that was Chuck's mental reasoning that most people would get lost without a road map. Still, maybe he was a tad grumpy himself that he allowed sarcasm to drip effortlessly off of his tongue when Chuck remarked that "this stuff doesn't even surprise you anymore."  
  
"You've lost faith in chance, my friend." Chuck yelled to him as he stood on the road and awaited the car.  
  
"I just have more faith in this, friend." He retorted, gesturing to the paper.  
  
But the car didn't stop. The next thing he knew, a speeding car had hit him, knocking him to the ground and rendering him unconscious.  
  
Darkness.  
  
A strange light, then a voice, a girl, maybe an apparition, spoke to him. He tried sitting up to make out the face, but his head felt as if a sledgehammer had struck him. When he opened his eyes, he saw his friends. He was in the hospital and learned that he had been unconscious for hours. A short while later, the doctor arrived. He protested because he didn't want to stay in the hospital. He was fine. In college, the guys always teased him about having a hard head that allowed him to weather some hard blows. Of course, being tackled on the football field doesn't compare to being hit by a car, but he was still fine. However, the doctor said he couldn't leave. "Why?" He asked. "Because we have your pants." The doctor joked. Everyone is a comedian.  
  
"I'm not staying." He said adamantly. The next thing he knew was that he was being wheeled on a gurney by a nurse whose bedside manner resembled a drill sergeant. He needed for Chuck and Marissa to see to the paper. His friends disappeared on their mission, as did the nurse momentarily.  
  
He heard a sound near his gurney. He leaned to the side to uncover the source. That was when her voice jolted him from the gurney and he landed on the floor with a resounding thump.  
  
Her name was Rachel, but he didn't know that then.  
  
Later, the cat appeared sans paper. The cat fled the hospital room and he followed in hot pursuit. He saw the cat sitting on a girl's lap, the same mysterious girl from earlier when he had fallen off of the gurney. The girl had his paper. He asked for his paper back, but the precocious imp debated with him about how the paper couldn't be his because his name wasn't on it and further, the paper was wrong; it had tomorrow's date. Their heated debate attracted the attention of a surgeon. The girl left the paper and exited the room with the dramatic flare of a diva. The surgeon asked his name then berated him for arguing with a child. After he countered by pointing out her snap judgment about him, the doctor softened. He asked about the girl and learned that her name was Rachel and she was waiting for something. She was waiting for a new heart.  
  
Her name was Rachel and an inexplicable bond was cemented between them. She was such a special child, vibrant and hopeful.  
  
She had taken him onto the hospital roof. She admitted that she liked it there because she felt closer to God. She joked with him about being an "old man" then revealed that she was "promised" to another guy who was an older man. Soon, her tone became serious. She remarked that he didn't believe in God. He wondered why she had made that observation. She surmised that he believed in that paper and that he didn't like it out of his sight. Her perceptiveness scared him; it seemed like the perceptiveness born from years of experience not youth.  
  
There was no denying that Rachel was a special child.  
  
The paper had revealed that Rachel would be receiving a new heart. His joy for her was short lived when a short while later, the paper offered another story about Rachel dying after rejecting her new heart. After much effort, he was able to convince the surgeon not to perform the transplant. When Rachel learned that she hadn't received her new heart, she was devastated. She sensed that he had interfered with the surgeon's plans, that his refusal to have faith had robbed her of her dream. She gazed at him with hurt eyes. Those eyes tore at his chest. He had saved her life. Then why did he feel so guilty?  
  
Through a bizarre twist of fate, the paper offered another story about Rachel finding a matching donor. However, he was shocked when he learned that the new heart belonged to one of the teens responsible for the theft of Chuck's car. The story revealed that the teen would be shot during an attempted holdup.  
  
A life for a life. He was asked to make a choice, to play God. If he let the boy die, Rachel would have her new heart. But if he saved the kid, Rachel would probably die. The unforgiving clock was ticking at a determined pace. He didn't have much time to make his choice.  
  
With a heavy heart, he arrived at the scene of the attempted robbery trying to convince the teen to ignore his cohort's criminal intentions. The cohort pulled out a gun. In a split second, he fell to the ground. He learned later that the teen whose life he had tried to save had instead saved him from being shot.  
  
A dream, maybe; a vision, perhaps, but he was back in the hospital. He saw Rachel undergoing surgery. Her essence raised from her physical body imploring him to have faith and to let go of the paper.  
  
"I can't." He replied.  
  
"You have to." She insisted.  
  
And he did. His hands released the paper; the paper fell haphazardly to the ground.  
  
Faith had prevailed. Rachel had survived the transplant. The teen that had been on the threshold of disaster was on the road to a productive life.  
  
And a special girl with the gift of innocence had given him the gift of faith.  
  
The End. 


End file.
